Stock Trading Strategy: Pyramid Your profits!
If your seeing wild fluctuations in your trading portfolio, and not of the upwards kind, then your forgetting a critical piece of knowledge. To be a successful trader, you MUST cut your losses short, and let your profits run. It is THE most important lesson to learn, right up there with using a stop loss, and key concepts like support and resistance. To be a highly successful trader, you need to learn to pyramid your profits, greatly amplifying your gains, and turning the big winners, into true home runs.
The art of pyramiding your profits begins with good risk management. You should never risk more then 5% of your portfolio on any given trade, and many experienced traders use numbers as low as 2-3%. This doesn't mean someone with a $50000 portfolio can only invest in $2500 worth of a companies stock, it means that when they are setting their stop loss, they must be cognizant of how much they can lose on the trade.
So if a company is trading at $20 per share, and our stop loss is at $17.50, we can lose $2.50 per share by buying. If were willing to lose no more then $2500, then $2500/$2.50 = 1000 shares. So we should purchase 1000 shares for this trade.
With your standard trade, that would be hit. An order to sell at a certain price, and order to buy at a certain price, and a stop loss. When your pyramiding your profits though, there's an integral extra step. When the stock has gone up in price, and you have some profits, you add MORE to the position. Lets say it goes up to $22.50, and you decide to move your stop loss up to $21.00. You now have 1000 in gains if you get stopped out. To pyramid your profits, you add that 1000 in gains to your risk amount for the trade, for a total of $3500. Since its now at 22.50, and we can risk up to $3500, then we should purchase another 2300 shares. (3500/1.5 = 2334).
So to recap. Stop loss at 21, we bought 1000 shares at 20, and 2300 at 22.50. If it goes down to 21, we gain 1000 on the first 1000 shares, and lose 3450 on the batch of 2300 shares, for a total loss of $2500 " the original risk amount. However, if it goes up to 25 as we originally forecast as our profit target, we've made $5000 on the original 1000 shares, and another $5750 on the second batch of 2300 shares. This is a total gain of 10750, while never risking more then $2500 in capital. The same idea can be applied to shorting as well. Its all about doing more of whats working, and less of what isn't.
Yet the applications of this strategy are important not just for the short term trader; it can be used by long term investors as well. Assuming its an up trending stock, long term investors would be well served to start with smaller positions, with a stoploss, and essentially add to the position on breakouts. This allows you to profit from the frequent megatrends in the market, while being taken out of the market if it begins going against you.
The interesting thing about this strategy is while its almost the opposite of some conventional wisdom " you never go broke taking a profit " it does strongly adhere to the idea of cutting losses short and letting profits run. The key is to do more of whats working, and less of what isn't, and that's exactly what this kind of trade accomplishes.
The art of pyramiding your profits is essential to long term success in the stock market. They say that even some of the best traders are only right 50%, 40%, sometimes even only 30% of the time, but as that example showed, by pyramiding your profits, your gains will far outweigh the small losses you occasionally take. - 23196
The art of pyramiding your profits begins with good risk management. You should never risk more then 5% of your portfolio on any given trade, and many experienced traders use numbers as low as 2-3%. This doesn't mean someone with a $50000 portfolio can only invest in $2500 worth of a companies stock, it means that when they are setting their stop loss, they must be cognizant of how much they can lose on the trade.
So if a company is trading at $20 per share, and our stop loss is at $17.50, we can lose $2.50 per share by buying. If were willing to lose no more then $2500, then $2500/$2.50 = 1000 shares. So we should purchase 1000 shares for this trade.
With your standard trade, that would be hit. An order to sell at a certain price, and order to buy at a certain price, and a stop loss. When your pyramiding your profits though, there's an integral extra step. When the stock has gone up in price, and you have some profits, you add MORE to the position. Lets say it goes up to $22.50, and you decide to move your stop loss up to $21.00. You now have 1000 in gains if you get stopped out. To pyramid your profits, you add that 1000 in gains to your risk amount for the trade, for a total of $3500. Since its now at 22.50, and we can risk up to $3500, then we should purchase another 2300 shares. (3500/1.5 = 2334).
So to recap. Stop loss at 21, we bought 1000 shares at 20, and 2300 at 22.50. If it goes down to 21, we gain 1000 on the first 1000 shares, and lose 3450 on the batch of 2300 shares, for a total loss of $2500 " the original risk amount. However, if it goes up to 25 as we originally forecast as our profit target, we've made $5000 on the original 1000 shares, and another $5750 on the second batch of 2300 shares. This is a total gain of 10750, while never risking more then $2500 in capital. The same idea can be applied to shorting as well. Its all about doing more of whats working, and less of what isn't.
Yet the applications of this strategy are important not just for the short term trader; it can be used by long term investors as well. Assuming its an up trending stock, long term investors would be well served to start with smaller positions, with a stoploss, and essentially add to the position on breakouts. This allows you to profit from the frequent megatrends in the market, while being taken out of the market if it begins going against you.
The interesting thing about this strategy is while its almost the opposite of some conventional wisdom " you never go broke taking a profit " it does strongly adhere to the idea of cutting losses short and letting profits run. The key is to do more of whats working, and less of what isn't, and that's exactly what this kind of trade accomplishes.
The art of pyramiding your profits is essential to long term success in the stock market. They say that even some of the best traders are only right 50%, 40%, sometimes even only 30% of the time, but as that example showed, by pyramiding your profits, your gains will far outweigh the small losses you occasionally take. - 23196
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posted by X - Men @ 2:13 AM
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